Thursday, 27 September 2012

How to stop a dog barking

Barking is a normal behaviour for a dog and it is not at all fair or
realistic to expect your dog not to bark at all. But that being said,
constant barking is not acceptable and it is a good idea to train your
dog from a young age so that he does not bark continually. It is
important that your puppy doesn’t bark for no reason, and you should
help him learn to stop barking, or your neighbor would feel very upset
about your doggie. Firstly, you should know what makes your dog bark,
Dogs bark for several reasons. They might be bored, frustrated,
playing, guarding you or simply asking for attention. Sometimes, it has
been accidentally trained when the dog was very young – perhaps a fuss
was made of the dog when it was a puppy and gave an adorable little
bark, and it learnt that it got plenty of attention when it barked. Dogs
might also bark because of separation anxiety, and this is especially
true for puppies.
Way to sovle the problem:
Although it doesn’t feel like the most proactive method of training a
puppy to stop barking, ignoring it can be one of the most effective
ways. As already mentioned, one of the most common reasons for a puppy
to bark is anxiety at being left alone, as in the past it would have
been used to having its mother and the rest of the litter around.
Distract them:
If your puppy is kept busy a lot of the time, it will be much less
likely to bark. However, distraction is more a method of prevention
rather than cure. If your puppy has dog toys to keep it occupied when you need to leave the room, it will likely to be much more content and keep quiet for longer.
Another method of distraction involves making a noise to startle the
dog and put it off what it was doing – in this case, barking. This can
be as easy as banging a cupboard door, and then immediately carrying on
with what you were doing. This breaks your dog’s concentration and
interrupts his barking. The idea is that he associates the noise with
his barking and not you.
Walk them:
Exercise is a great solution to stop barking in a dog or puppy. If
your dog has been left alone for a long time or has been in the house
all day, it could well be frustrated or barking out of boredom.
Frequently, a nice long walk will help to relax both you and your dog,
and when you get back home, your dog will most likely curl up and go to
sleep. Playing with a puppy and getting it to run around inside the
house will have the same effect. Don’t forget to buy him a fashion dog collar and walk him with a new dog leash, which would also excite him!